Saturday, September 15, 2012

Regions eroding?!

Lookkit these from Amazon UK:





... "Region Free". Do my eyes deceive me? Is this the future?

(By the way, no, MIB3 is not released yet, Amazon lists items months before release.)

Friday, September 14, 2012

Two new compact full-frame cams

A compact full-frame DSLR, Nikon D600! (Article.)



What really weird is that it costs only $2100, $500 less than the new compact Sony RX1... Even though the Nikon has a billion trillion gazillion more features and flexibility.
I hope for Sony that ultimate size in full-frame is very important to some people.



Don't get me wrong, the Sony is amazing, but $2600 is just shocking.
(Article.)

It's a shame (and almost typical, somehow) that neither of these amazing cameras have any image stabilization! (Unless, with the Nikon, you put on a lens which has it. The Sony's lens is fixed.)

By the way, Bert asked "I thought you weren't interested in full-frame cameras anymore?"
Well, true to a certain degree. But I'm always interested in quality, and not the least the quality/size ratio. Whenever they come out with a new camera which has the same quality in as smaller package, I get interested, at least in principle.
Although it's true that we are now at a point where Micro Four Thirds (1/4th the sensor size of full-frame) can deliver all the quality I need normally (because I rarely make really big prints).

Hallelujah - Hannah Trigwell live cover

[Thanks to Ganesha Games]


(I like her mic. Anybody know what type it is?)


(Lyrics.)

Eric M commented on YT:
its not a song about religion. it's a love song.. a very dark love song about a disconnected love. recalling making love, "And remember when I moved in you","and every breath we drew was hallelujah"... contrasting their intimacy to present times "There was a time when you let me know, What's really going on below, But now you never show it to me, do you?" if it sounds dirty, it is. that's why cohen is brilliant. amazingly honest, graphic, yet eloquent, beautiful and relate-able.

Notice that Cohen himself has stopped singing "ya" for "you", to make it rhyme (orig version), while the cover singers still do. When you're the man himself, you can get away with more.

If you like this song, don't miss these versions.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Acoustic levitation

[Thanks to Ian]


Oh thank god

[Thanks to Bert]
For the last time, redheads are not going extinct, article.



Pondering Cybersecurity in the Real World

Pondering Cybersecurity in the Real World, article.

Critical infrastructure attacks over the Internet are up 17-fold — to which one might justly reply, “Wait, why exactly is a power grid control system connected to the Internet at all, rather than being isolated on a private network?”


an Argentinean friend once told me, “I can always tell who’s American when I travel; they’re the ones who will walk up to a police officer to ask for directions.”

“More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk.”
-

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Text sizes, what's readable?

I've found out that some readers have trouble reading text when I set it to be one step smaller than Normal. (I do this sometimes to de-emphasize a sentence.)
Which sizes below are easy to read for you? (Well, the text anyway, not the poetry.)

Normal:

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

Minus One:

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

Normal, italics:

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

I haven't used it before, but maybe some can even read Minus Two?:

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

---
I have always found that the default text size in browsers and on web sites are often too small for me to read comfortably, so I have always set my browsers to display it bigger by default, and to have a bigger minimum size. I don't know what percentage of web surfers are aware they can do this.
I can read pretty small text, but I find that a nice big font puts a lot less strain on the eyes, which is nice when you use screens alda time.



Monday, September 10, 2012

If only...


Whereever you find yourself, that's where you start.

(Old Chinese saying that I made.)

The Online Photographer: Mike's Day Out


The Online Photographer: Mike's Day Out (with Sony RX100), article


from what little I can tell after a few hours of happy snapping with it, it seems like the sensor in the RX100 is a particularly talented one. The results (see top pic) are sort of lush, luscious, and rich. Digital is starting to look less digital, it seems, which is a good thing.
-

Sunday, September 09, 2012

The human condition

I wanna explain why I'm photographing less.
I have a painful condition. It may be "fibromyalgia", according to one doctor. Or it may not. In any case, it's a big pain, sort of unfocused, but often overwhelming. I've had it for many years, but it has come to a head in recent years, and it sucks up 90% of my energy, so I barely have the strength to do my work and a bit of blogging (a lot of that goes to eReaderJoy.com).
It sucks, but the Universe has a plan for everything and everybody, so we'll just have to see where things go. It's all okay.

New Seinfeld site

Jerry Seinfeld has made a new site, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.

I'm not sure it's exactly hysterical, but they feature some really cool cars (like a sixties Dutch police car, a Porsche!). And I like the quality of the video. Pinsharp, and a full range of tones, it's clear that it's done by pros with top equipment.
It's funny how you can still tell the difference. Fifteen years ago when pros started using cheap Digital Video cameras (not even HD) for feature movies (like the Danish Dogma95 movies), I sort of thought, well, who needs big professional cameras now?
Maybe it's because the quality sneaks up on us, we just get used to higher quality, and then we can see differences which we wouldn't have noticed before.


I'd like to see Seinfeld and Lenno do a show about vintage cars. I think that would be entertaining.

Sony RX1 camera leaks with full-frame sensor in compact body

Sony RX1 camera leaks with full-frame sensor in compact body, article.
RX1, whose body looks borderline pocketable yet stuffs in the same kind of sensor (and likely image quality) you'd normally reserve for pro-grade models. Several extra details reveal themselves right from the start. The RX1 is carrying a 35mm, f/2.0 lens with no apparent button to detach the lens

Wow, a full frame "compact" camera, didn't see that coming.
But cool idea. If everything is done right, and I think it will be, then we may get the best image quality we've ever seen for a hand-sized camera.

A very beautiful camera

Of course, like I wrote about recently, with only a prime (non-zoom) lens, this will appeal only to people who put image quality (and portability) on a tall pedistal. For many people's general use it'll feel limited. A 35mm lens is for example not the best choice for portraits, unless you want the location and background to play a significant role.

iPhone revenue greater than all of Microsoft's

iPhone revenue greater than all of Microsoft's, article.
Apple's iPhone business unit could be a Fortune 50 company on its own. That business unit is already bigger than all of Microsoft in terms of revenue. From June 2011 until June 2012, the iPhone generated $74.3 billion in revenue for Apple. By comparison, all of Microsoft's business units together generated $73 billion in revenue.

Imagine suggesting this at a Microsoft board meeting fifteen years ago.  They would have laughed so hard they would fall on the floor, then they would kick you down the stairs, and then they would continue laughing until they puked.

"Sometimes [usually?] reality is more incredible than fiction."